Posts Tagged ‘Humane-Technology’

This is not a sci-fi movie character, up against off-world battles, evil rivals and extreme challenges. You are looking at a power amplification robot, called Power Loader, currently under development by Activelink, a Panasonic subsidiary venture.

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Drones are typically thought of as flying spying robots, or even worse flying spying shooting robots. But could we also employ drones for good? The people of conversationdrones.org employ drones to survey wildlife, monitor ecosystems and guard protected areas.

Although there is still a ‘boys with toys’ element to the practice, the idea to employ the technosphere to support the biosphere must be applauded.

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The future of USB keys? Sticky notes 2.0! Traditional Post-it has been updated by an Indian duo of designers, Aditi Singh and Parag Anand. DataSTICKIES could be the next generation of data portability. Made of graphene to mimic the look of little adhesive note tabs, they can store a great quantity of digital information, just like a USB key.

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Thirty years after the first Walkman, Sony is trying to put something else on our head. Sony’s engineers have designed a new form of wearable tech: the Smart Wig, with embedded rumble technology to tap the wearer on the scalp when they get a message. The hairpiece incorporates sensors, a communication interface and an actuator for tactile feedback.

The Smart Wig would be tethered to a partner device, which would then tell the wig to vibrate whenever there’s something actionable going on with the smartphone. Sony suggests that there could also be a camera, a GPS, an ultrasound-based proximity scanner and a laser pointer incorporated into the Smart Wig.

Will this cyber wig be useful or will it just make us look ridiculous? We guess that the phrase “it makes me want to tear my hair out” will assume a whole new meaning.

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Now that technology erases distance and increases the possibilities of communication, telling your loved one that you are thinking about him or her has become as easy as touching a bracelet on your wrist. The device, called TapTap, designed by American company Woodenshark, is a plastic bracelet able to transfer touch between two people. A pair of TapTap wristbands are remotely connected to each other: when someone tap his bracelet, the other one vibrates. The technology works with a Smartphone app that uses a Bluetooth connection.

We have traveled quite a distance in making our digital communications more personal and concrete through visual means, for instance with photo sharing and video chat. Emulating touch seems to be the next step in humanizing our long-distance interactions. This tool can turn the wearable into a new gesture-based user interface. By translating a user’s tap into a vibration, it makes this sort of Morse code the new language of love.

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Do you remember the invisible headphone implants directly grafted in the ears? Nowadays it seems everyone can become a DIY cyborg. The latest experiment in body modification was made by the biohacker Tim Cannon. Without any medical assistance he implanted directly under the skin of his arm a clearly visible computer chip that can record and transmit his biometrical data.

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3D printing technology is become more accessible, more affordable, and more useful every day. From factory tooling to movie props, 3D has countless applications – and now, you can even print your own house! In this TED talk, University of Southern California professor Behrokh Khoshnevis talks about scaling up the processes already used in rapid prototyping technology, and working with a 3D printer that can print the structure of a 250 square meter house using concrete.

A major limitation of the technology is that it only prints on a single level. Enrico Dini’s British company D-shape hopes to expand on the possibilities of large-scale 3D printing, and has managed to print a two-level structure, but not a livable home yet. It raises the question of which direction this technology is headed – in the future, will we print taller, leading to constructive new methods of city-building, or will we print wider, increasing the already-rapid pace of suburban sprawl? And if it does lead to sprawl, who will print roads and sewer lines to serve the houses?

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The possibility to restore the sense of touch is becoming a reality with cybernetic hands. A new study, published on PNASand coordinated by Sliman Bensmaia at the University of Chicago, is opening the way to touch-sensitive artificial limbs that in the future could communicate real-time sensory information to amputees, through a direct interface with the brain.

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Thanks to new technologies, life sciences now have to face the age of big data. With advances in genome sequencing, imaging and other technology, biologists and neuroscientists are generating data very quickly. According to David Relman, a physician and microbiologist at Stanford University:

“We are now faced with the daunting challenge of trying to understand the system from the perspective of all this big data, with not nearly as much biology with which to interpret it. The whole genome can fit on a CD, but the brain is comparable to the digital content of the world”.

To go through the big data revolution, scientists will need to develop data analysis tools and to get used to the concept of sharing their data.

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Merry Lynn Morris is a dance professor at the University of South Florida. She is also an inventor. Morris believes that everyone should be able to dance, regardless of any physical disability, which is why she invented the Rolling Dance Chair. It is designed to disappear under the dancer with a clear seat, and it moves and rotates intuitively based on the dancer’s body movements. Morris says it is an extension of the dancer much like any other prop or equipment that they use, rather than a burden.

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The development of touch technology has opened many possibilities of interaction with our electronic devices. Until now, you’ve had to physically touch the screen in order to interact with it. To solve this issue Tom Carter, PhD student at the University of Bristol’s Interaction and Graphics, designed UltraHaptics.

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Sitting in front of a computer and exercising have never been so closely related. Stir Kinetic Desk is just as well-suited for the workaholic as the fitness fan. The desk “breathes”, moving up and down slightly, to remind users to change their position, helping improve posture.

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3D printers have hit the mainstream. We’ve already talked about different sorts of 3D printing, including food, organs, buildings, and thoughts, although these are all expensive and require complicated software. The latest evolution of the 3D printer is 3Doodle, a version of the classic pen than can draw in the air using plasticine. This product, on sale for $99, does not need complex systems to work, just a socket and a creative hand.

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If Apple is right we are making strides towards a future without passwords. We’ll only need our biometric data to access to our personal devices, services and websites, for instance using our fingerprints. It seems like we are going to identify ourselves with technology every day more.